


Across the Universe Divide

by MGVR



Category: Highwayman - The Highwaymen (Song)
Genre: Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Ghosts, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Gore, Mildly Dubious Consent, Mystery, Outer Space, Psychological Horror, Sea, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 10:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MGVR/pseuds/MGVR
Summary: The story of four men across time and space, linked together by a mysterious force, trying to get out of a loop of ghosts, gore, and death, and escape an ominous fate.





	Across the Universe Divide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moosesal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosesal/gifts).



"Systems failure in 40 minutes," a programmed female voice echoed calmly.

Reese blinked slowly and shifted in his seat letting fragments of awareness seep in.

_How long was I out?_

The view from the small window to his right was still pitch black nothingness.

To his left, Dex was prone over the navigation console. He couldn’t see his face in the dark, just a dim outline of his figure, but he could tell that his body was resting on the controls in an uncomfortable position. "Dex…" he grunted, lifting a shaky hand to wipe away beads of cold sweat."Dex, wake up, we need to get up."

There was barely any light in the cockpit. The only source of illumination was the console itself. God, he missed having light.

Everything hurt. It usually hurt when he woke up after one of his episodes, but this one really did a number on him. The episodes were growing more frequent in the past week, and each left him more exhausted and weaker than the one before.

Even though he wasn't in much better shape than him, Dex, his co-pilot and navigator, had still given him a reassuring smile and a strong squeeze of his shoulder that said, _I'll be there to wake you up_. That was the only thing that had kept him going.

" _Systems failure in 30 minutes._ " 

When the lights went out, he and Dex had not been prepared. At all. They'd been in the middle of having dinner when one of the mainframe's batteries, which were meant to last for 125 years, had fried with a large pop leaving them both immersed in darkness. After the first mutual panic attack they had tried to bypass the system, redirect power from other non-essentials to the lighting system, and turn it off and on again, but only managed to screw up some other things in the process and still no lights. Even though the ship had a few backup flashlights, they had limited their use of them. The thought of not having even the slightest possibility for light down the road had been too unbearable.

Like he did countless times in the past two months, Reese pried open his eyes as wide as he could, forcing his vision to adjust to the light from the console.

"Another system is failing," he grunted quietly.

No response.

The guy was asleep more than him lately. 

He leaned heavily on his own console and tapped the computer awake. Most of the non-essentials were already offline, no changes there. But, the new alarm…this was something that really should not be happening. "Dex, I think we're losing life support here." He frowned — still no answer.

With some difficulty, he stretched his arm to pat Dex's shoulder and froze midway. Dex's eyes were wide open and staring at him.

"Man… you awake?" he whispered.

At first, he didn't quite process what he was seeing. But then, his heart skipped a beat.  
Dex's mouth was slightly open, and blood was oozing from his mouth and nose pooling underneath his chin and over his console.

For a long moment, Reese was frozen. Maybe he was still dreaming? He jumped out of his seat and sent a shaky hand to his nav's neck to check for a pulse, but stopped at the sight of a large gash across his throat. 

People had tended to mistake him and Dex for the same person. With only a year apart, brown hair and grey eyes just like his, he could see how they made the mistake. They had first met at the academy and had been inseparable. At the time, it had proved very useful during tests, especially for him. Dex was such a nerd; he absorbed information like a sponge.

This was their second assignment together, and it had been supposed to last three weeks tops. The truth of the matter was that they had been cut off from communication for about 38 weeks now. And it had been around week 12 that the rest of the state-of-the-art, top quality devices on the ship started to fail around them.

"Systems failure in 20 minutes".

Facing the torturous process of actually getting up seemed for a long while impossible, and frankly, it surprised him that he eventually managed it.

With great effort, he pulled himself up and out of the pilot seat, averting his gaze from Dex and praying his numb legs wouldn't fail him once he took his hands off the armrests.

The mainframes were in a room just outside the cockpit. Normally, he wouldn't think twice about reaching it, but now he only managed a few steps before falling hard to his knees instantly stretching his hands forward to stop his face from hitting the floor. With a groan he shifted into a sitting position and carefully slumped back against the base of the pilot chair. "Dex, I can't do this without you…please don't be dead."

"Systems failure in 10 minutes".

Reese pushed off the ground to a standing position and groped for the wall, leaning on everything around him for support.

The mainframe box cover was already open when he finally reached it. Inside was an emergency flashlight and a toolkit securely attached to the inner wall. He grabbed both and yanked them out.

Having the ghostly white light of the flashlight suddenly fill the cabin was not as comforting as he hoped.

Even though now he could see everything, after being in the darkness for so long the beam felt unnatural and out of place, creating shadowy forms in the corners of the cabin. He shone the light in Dex's direction and regretted it almost immediately. It was much worse than he anticipated. Dex's console was covered in blood, and so was the chair all the way to the floor.

"Systems failure in 5 minutes". 

He knew that once the countdown was complete the ship would be completely disabled, oxygen would slowly run out, and the cabin temperature would drop to equalize itself with the coldness of space.

Placing the flashlight between his teeth, he browsed through the laminated system manual even though it had already proved itself utterly useless. The life support panel was lit in orange, and next to it a blinking red light indicated its battery was nearly depleted. After careful consideration, and frankly lack of choice, he opted to randomly fiddle with switches, and type-in key commands hoping to magically find a way to fix it. He was not the mechanical genius. That was Dex's department. 

Eventually, he just stood there and watched as the system reached zero and shut itself down, leaving him with nothing but the harsh light of the flashlight and deafening silence. 

In the first two weeks of darkness, he and Dex kept up with their meticulous routine of food, work and rest and tried to keep the mood light. But after a while, their routine started fraying at the seams. 

The first time Reese had had an episode he was alone in the shower. It was only for a few minutes, and he hadn’t thought much of it at the time. It was difficult to do things in the dark, and although the machines illuminated everything with a faint light of their own, it was not a surprise to have a few accidents. "When we're back on the USS Argo, they'll think I hit you," Dex had laughed as he patched Reese's cheek and forehead. "I'll just tell them I walked into a door again," he had returned the smile.

When the second episode had happened, he was with Dex at what they referred to as the lab, which was a tiny room packed with computers, two workstations overflowing with equipment, and a military issue mat they would use alternately when running tests. Reese was the one on duty, and Dex had been keeping him company just lying on the mat and reading. "It's really good, you should read it after I'm done," he had said. When Reese didn't reply, he had looked up and found him frozen mid-movement, staring into the vast nothingness, hypnotized and oblivious to his surroundings. "Hey, Waldo?" Dex teased but had started to panic when he couldn't rouse him. 

"Do you think it's like epilepsy or something?" Dex had asked over dinner a few nights after that. Neither was even remotely close to doctors. The closest they had ever gotten was a mandatory military medics' course.

"I don't know," he had said. He had wanted to say that maybe it had to do with that thing out there, that tar pit they were stuck in, but said nothing. 

Before long a few minutes had turned into a few hours, and he would forget where he was, or what he was doing. 

Getting back to the pilot chair was just as hard as getting to the mainframe. The air was heavy around him though he doubted it was lack of oxygen at this point. Oxygen does not simply disappear once the mainframe is down. It actually takes some time to die of asphyxiation. He placed both hands on his head trying to calm himself. Dex was staring at him, one side of his face coated in dried blood and the other, ghostly white. He had no fight left in him. Like a mirror image, Reese placed his head on the console facing Dex and waited to die.

"Giving up so soon?" 

He must have fallen asleep.

He jumped awake and looked around him hoping that maybe by some miracle he was being rescued. Everything was still dark, except for the beam of light from the flashlight that was now on the floor, pointing to an empty seat.

With full, horror movie panic, he shot up to his feet. "What the fu..?"

"Whoa there," a familiar voice came from somewhere in the middle of the cabin. "Just don't pass out. It's just me," and with that Dex stepped out of the shadow and picked up the flashlight.

It was by far, the most horrifying moment of his life. Blotches of light and shadow made Dex's face look even more disfigured, and the blood cut his face right down the middle like two-face. 

"You…you're dead!"

"Yeah… here is the strange thing…I think we both are."

"What…" his mouth went dry.

”Hey, hey, breathe." He closed his eyes and breathed in from his nose and out from his mouth. How could he be dead and be doing that?

"I'm not dead," he stated matter-of-factly. He didn't feel dead. And the fact that his heart was going a mile a minute right now was all the more proof of that. But apparently, Dex wasn't dead either, which made it a little harder to swallow.

"Listen. I find this hard to believe myself, but…" Dex moved a step closer pointing at his neck.

"I don't know what's going on, is this a joke? Is it the lack of oxygen? Am I having another episode? Am I in hell? This must be the lack of oxygen. I'm hallucinating. Or sleeping, I need to wake up."

"Okay, you're freaking out, you need to calm down, so we can figure this out. I'm guessing my Halloween appearance is not helping. Let me just…" and at that, he placed the flashlight gently on the floor, and backed away slowly into the cabin and the adjacent washroom. Reese jumped on the flashlight as soon as he heard water running, and shone it to all direction at once. He was freaking out. Everything was just as he remembered before passing out on the console next to Dex's body.

A minute later, Dex emerged from the other room, no traces of blood on his face or hair, and his neck… it was as if nothing had happened.

"What happened to you?" Reese said as he was starting to calm down.

"Don't you remember?I…"

"No, should I?" 

Dex stared at him for a moment and then shook his head as if trying to get rid of some undesired thought that snuck in. "No..no, guess not." Reese didn't understand.

"It doesn't matter now," Dex continued. "Do you remember anything from your episodes?" 

Reese was not happy about not getting answers and made a mental note to return to it later to his questions but he didn't push it right now, and let Dex nose dive straight into business. "No" he answered. "Or at least I haven't so far." 

"So I guess this is the first order of business". He wasn't following, but Dex didn't seem to care.

"I'm sorry, but can you explain to me what is going on?" 

"Trust me." Dex smiled. "I have a theory, but I need you to remember". 

 

******

 

Will woke up not where he expected to be. He found himself in a strange bed and shot up with a start. "Don't bury me! I'm alive!" he declared quickly, breathing in deeply just to make sure. 

"You need to lie back down. You collapsed, and they brought you here" a voice came from behind what was once a white divider but now was covered with horizontal yellow stains across its midsection. The heat in the room was unbearable.

"I'm fine." He felt terrible. "What I need is to get back to work." His head was pounding, and he was covered in sweat. He waited patiently for the man behind the curtain to respond. But the only reply he got was a repetitive clank of metal on wood and a pungent smell of rubbing alcohol and iodine. So he lay back down.

The room he was in was very small and mostly bare with only one window that was draped in heavy blue curtains blocking the outside and directly underneath it a pine wood table and a matching padded chair. He was lying on a very uncomfortable bed in the middle of the room covered with a thin white sheet. 

He still had most of his clothes on. His belt, gloves, and shoes were by the wall, but his hat and over shirt were nowhere to be seen. 

"William Bartholomew Jones, 23. No wife. No children. No next of kin." 

The man from behind the curtain stepped into his line of sight holding a brown folder in one hand and a pen in the other and stared at him expectantly. "Correct?"

"Yes," Will nodded.

"What you mean to say is 'yes, Dr. Voigt'." The man, no, the doctor, stated with a sigh. He lowered his eyes to the folder and scribbled something. Then, without looking at Will he made his way to the chair and sat down. "And you are not fine."

"Yes, Dr. Voigt, I mean, no, Dr. Voigt."

At that, the doctor seemed pleased. 

Dr. Voigt looked significantly older and paler than the other guys in town. His once blonde hair was mostly white and only a few wayward strands hinted at its original color. He was wearing eyeglasses but kept taking them off. Will figured they were mostly for show. Maybe he thought it made him look more dignified.

"Do you remember what happened to you, Mr. Jones?" 

"I…I guess I must have slipped.…" Heat crawled up his ears and cheeks. For the life of him, he had no idea.

"Have you eaten anything today?"

"I have to get back to work. I can't stay."

The doctor narrowed his eyes and gave him a penetrating gaze before readjusting his glasses over his nose. "Yes, you keep saying that." He paused and scribbled something in his file. "I can't say I've met anyone as eager as you to get back to work. Especially not here." 

"You can't keep me here if I don't want to stay, right?"

The doctor straightened up in his seat and gently took his eyeglasses off. "I'm not going to stop you. God knows I have enough of your kind passing through here and I could use the bed." He cleared his throat "But in your state, I reckon you'll be back here by the day's end. So I suggest you might as well stay here and rest."

Will didn't like to rest. In fact, he despised resting. Working was the only thing that kept his mind off of ...everything, and so work was the only thing on his mind.

A little slower than he would have liked he climbed off the bed and made a beeline to his work boots. "You know what they say about idle hands" he tried to make light of things, distract the enemy while he made his escape.

"I don't think this applies to you at the moment, Mr. Jones."

"Thanks all the same Dr. Voigt," he said and was out of the door before anything else could be said. Work was abundant at Boulder Dam, enough work for a lifetime. He just had not to get fired. 

After a few unreasonably long corridors with nothing but closed doors, Will was finally free. The sun was harsh and made him squint and quickly place a hand to shade his eyes. His hat and over shirt, it occurred to him, were probably still at the clinic. He contemplated whether he should go back inside, but one look at the white brick building behind him and he quickly decided against it.

He had never been to this part of the town before. He figured there'd much more people around. The town seemed deserted. He sat down on the front steps to put on his shoes. In the distance, he could see the shimmering water of the Colorado River as it curved and disappeared in the distance. 

"Back from the dead, I see." The sound made him twist around too fast and flinch at the newfound pain in his back. 

The man he knew as Knox chuckled and slapped a hand on his back.

"Yeah," Will chuckled back faintly as Knox ruffled his hair and placed a strong, sweaty arm over his shoulders, leaning on him just a bit too much. "A clean bill of health."

"Good, good." The man said, giving him a strong pat on the back, clearly unaware of Will's escalating pain and telltale sheen of sweat. "I saw them bring you in. Me and the fellows here thought you were a goner."

"Who brought me here? W… what happened?" He took a step back to avoid any more friendly taps.

Knox furrowed at that for a moment, contemplating his words while nervously itching away the sweat from his forehead.

"Well, I heard you were cooling the concrete. You know, the usual. Carlos was about to lower the crane for the second pour when you suddenly fell like a sack of potatoes." He stopped to give Will a reassuring smile "It's a good thing Regan was there to catch you before you nose-dived into the concrete or you'd be part of the wall right about now."

Will felt the blood drain from his face.

"You sure you're alright? You look a bit green around the gills."

"Yeah, yes… I'm fine," he said and gave Knox his best fake reassuring smile to mask how horrified he really felt.

"Well then, aren't you a regular Adler. Com'on let's get outta here, we'll go to Avenue B, get something to drink, you'll be good as new." And at that, he was given another tap on the back that made his head dizzy.

"Yeah, just a regular Adler…" Will mumbled to himself as they started walking.

Everyone knew the story of Emanuel Adler. Every time a new guy joined the workforce, the veterans would sit him down and with a gleeful and slightly ominous smile, recount it.

Before the depression, Adler used to be an accountant at a big firm. After the firm went belly up in 1929, he had found himself in desperate need of a job. He had applied to Six Companies for an accounting position, but a clerical error landed him at Boulder Dam as a construction worker. When he had arrived at the camp, it was easy to see he didn't belong. His arrogance and cynical demeanor and his gaunt and frail appearance had attracted many surprised looks that soon turned to annoyed ones. No one had thought he was going to make it through the first day. The work on the Dam was backbreaking and exhausting, and even the strongest men were struggling not to give up. At the time, they had still been working on the tunnels and to make the workers work faster the company had encouraged the work shifts to compete. For men that had to depend on each other, a man like him had been considered a weak point, and one weakness in a dam can have catastrophic results. Soon enough people stayed away from him and being assigned to his work group had been considered bad luck. He was a burden.

It was no surprise to anyone when one stifling day in the summer of '31 the man had just dropped. With heat that reached as high as 115 degrees during the day and 140 degrees inside the tunnels, he hadn’t been the first to succumb and wasn’t the last. 

Two of the workers had been assigned to remove the body from the site quickly so as not to upset the other workers, but none had been very mournful.

As evening fell, the body had been buried in a temporary graveyard in the outskirts of town. Emanuel Adler had been laid to rest as a simple worker in a shallow grave, accompanied only by the representative of Six Companies who had arrived to make all the arrangements, a priest, and the gravediggers.

The next morning, one of the gravediggers had arrived back at the graveyard to the horrible sight of a dirty hand protruding from the newly dug grave, twisted and pale in the faint early light. Adler had been buried alive.

The men liked to tell this story like children around the campfire, ending it with the regular finale of "and some say his ghost still haunts the tunnels to this very day."  
Will didn't even have to wait to arrive in Boulder before he heard the story, he heard it on the way over, and a few dozen versions in the weeks after that. He, of course, did not believe a word of it. Despite being one of the younger recruits, Will was not a kid and did not believe in ghosts or ghost stories. But the thought of being buried alive did take hold in his mind. So much so that each unexpected landslide of rocks from the canyon walls would quicken his heart and send his thoughts racing.

"Hey, you listening?" Knox said while downing another beer. 

"Yeah, yeah. You were saying that you think they would let me go in with the night shift?"

"I don't see why you would want to, but…hey! Can we have another beer over here?"

The chubby brunette at the counter jumped with a start. "Right away, sir."

"Are you gonna drink that?" Knox pointed at his untouched drink and narrowed his eyes.

"I'm gonna go find the work manager," Will said and got up. Knox was downing his drink before he even left the table.

At 7 PM sharp, the sound of the first shift coming back pulled him out of his thoughts. He didn't even notice the sun was starting to set. He was too wrapped up in his own mind. "Finally, thank god…"

When he looked up, he could already see men from the night shift gathering around, standing in small groups, talking. By 7:30, the truck was loaded and ready to go. He squeezed in and lowered his head so not to attract any attention, figuring he would talk to the on-site work manager once he got there.

"It's too bad for that kid," a Mexican man said to a man on his right with a thick accent. "Did they say what happened?"

"I heard he slipped. Such rotten luck," another said, to his left. 

"Can they pull him out?"

"He's deep in the concrete; there's no way they'll be able to fish him out."

The ride only took 10 minutes, but by the time Will got off he knew.

He thought about this morning, and about how he was cooling the concrete. Was someone calling his name? Something distracted him. And then he remembered falling. He was falling so fast and so deep, and he just kept falling. And it was night already, and he'd been falling since noon. And now he's back here again. The site was lit with a million small lights, like a Christmas tree. He'd never been here after dark. It was beautiful. 

 

***** 

Reese found himself waking to the view of the starless window in the cockpit. Again. Like he did so many times before. But this time, something was different — this time he remembered.

"So, this Will. Do you think he has anything to do with what is happening here? Is that why you wanted me to remember?" he asked Dex, when they were both sitting at the lab on the mat sharing one of the only real bottles of coke they had left, instead of some ship generated food.

Dex had his back to him and was taking apart some electrical circuit, tools scattered in front of him. He wasn't really expecting Dex to answer but his silence made him feel like there was something Dex knew and he didn't. He sipped from the bottle and continued.

"I don't know. But I do know it's part of what's keeping us here." "It felt like I was him. I feel like I am him now. I mean…I guess I just see myself in him. Do you think maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something? don't think I've felt that before."

"I have absolutely no doubt about that, the question is what?" Dex turned around grabbed the bottle and took a long sip. 

"Are you gonna tell me what happened to you?"

Dex looked at him, and he could see that wrinkle between his eyes deepen. 

"You killed me" he said without blinking and resumed his tinkering.

That was the last thing Reese expected to hear.

"But, before you say anything, I just wanted to tell you that I know it wasn't your fault," he continued. "Don't get me wrong, I was mad for the first couple of times."

"The first couple of times?"

"Yes. This, all this, has actually happened before."

Reese stared at him blankly.

"We've been trying to figure out how to get out of this loop for a while now, but we keep circling back to the beginning - which is kind of a good thing because I prefer not to be dead." This was a bit too much information to be handed all at once. He felt sick.

"So, what you are saying is that no matter what we try, I keep ending up killing you for some reason, and we end up here again."

"Yes."

"How come I can't remember any of this and you can?"

"I've been trying to figure this out myself," he said and shook his head. "All I know is that each time around, you seem to remember more information during your episodes, and thankfully, you've been accepting this whole "dead" and "loop" information much more easily recently, so I'm hoping this means we are getting closer."

Reese got up from the mat with a grunt. "Was I jumping to conclusions?" Dex looked up at his swaying form. "You're not gonna freak out on me again about this, are you? You were accepting it so well this time around."

At that Reese just pointed at the washroom. "Just need to wash my face for a minute."

"Oh, fine." Dex said and went back to tinkering.

 

******

 

Luke had to furl the sails. The weather changed so dramatically in minutes he barely had time to grab hold of something as he got into position. He clutched the yard and wrapped his left leg around the mast, balanced himself and tied himself to the foremast. "Never bring a woman on board," he thought to himself clenching his teeth.  
The rain started mixing with the spray of the large waves that were crashing over the deck. He had to get down from there. He had to get back in. The storm was getting too much for him to handle.

In the far distance off the port bow, black claws were protruding from inside the turbulent water, the graveyard of all those who came before them. He has been to the Horn a few times before and knew it was not an easy path to cross. 

The schooner was heading straight for the rocks, and the men below were screaming orders at each other over the bellowing wind. He couldn't hear them and knew they couldn't hear him, so he waved catching the attention of the first mate and pointed at the danger ahead. The ship swayed lazily to the side rising high in the air. He grabbed the foremast tight and braced himself just in time to feel his stomach drop as the ship crashed back into the water, half slicing into an oncoming wave. He looked down and saw the men preparing for another impact. This time the wave hit starboard side, and he screamed with anger as his head hit the wood and he thought he was going to fall off.

At 19 he spent more years on water than on land and considered himself a good seaman. But right now his mind was troubled. He had never seen the weather escalate that quickly before, and if they were ever going to make it out of this, he knew they would go after Lucia. Sailors are very superstitious.

The sky was rapidly becoming one with the sea. A large black shadow made a ghostly appearance starboard side. He waved at the first mate and pointed. Again with great effort, the schooner creaked and screamed at the maneuvers as it climbed up and crashed down.

"Take me home" Lucia's quivering voice had gnawed at him.

"No matter what, you keep her below until we're past the horn," he had told the cook. She had looked at him full of emotions that belonged to women, and that he couldn't understand.

"Luke!" she had yelled after him as he stepped outside, and in the corner of his eye, he had seen the cook trying to calm her down. He didn't want to leave her alone with him.

The memories of last night were still vivid in his mind. He hadn’t been able to sleep and had lain awake listening to the schooner's loud protests around him and to Lucia's breath next to his ear. Her head had rested on his shoulder, and he had felt the beating of her heart pulsing through him. He had tried to have his heart beat at the same rhythm as hers. Morning had come, and with it the façade of a warm breeze and tranquil sea. 

"It's so beautiful here. I wish we could sail forever," she had said.

"It won't be long until we are in Mexico. You will be able to see your mother and your father again."

"Yes, and we will be married." She had looked up at him with her big green eyes.

The rope was cutting into the palms of his hand, and he tried to recall those eyes again. 

"Your eyes are like emeralds," he had told her the night they met. He knew how much girls liked that kind of compliments.

Lucia had giggled bashfully and placed her hand on her mouth like she saw the other girls in the tavern do. He had been completely drunk. His ship had been in port, and he had been craving some female company. 

"Where are you from, beautiful?" He had been hypnotized by the dance of her lips as she talked, drinking the syllables of her words, tasting those full, soft, ruby lips on his tongue, between his teeth. "Mexico?" he had asked. "What is a girl from Mexico doing this far away?" He hadn’t been listening; he had just wanted her to keep talking. He knew girls liked to talk. He was a very good hunter, and she was a very good prey. Her long black hair had cascaded over her bare shoulders, placed like a veil between them. With a long and skilled finger, he had gently pushed it aside, exposing the tender skin of her shoulders. 

"Will you?" she had asked him with those emerald eyes. 

"Will I what?" he had said as he lowered his mouth onto her exposed neck. 

"Will you take me with you? On your boat?"

He had laughed, and she had become rigid in his arms.

"Of course I will take you on my boat" he had appeased. "I will take you on my boat right now."  
At that, she had leaped up, her hand in his, and before he knew it, they were headed back to the dock through the alleyways.

"Hey, wait little one," he had called after her as he tried to make her stop. But she hadn’t stopped. Mad, he had pulled her towards him, catching her as she fell into his arms. "I've got you" he had reassured her and stroked her face. He had been so hungry. He had been barely able to contain himself. He had grabbed her from below and hoisted her on top of him, pressing her against the brick wall. She had made a sound, a moan, like a wounded animal as he had bitten into her flesh, going inside her.

Early morning had found him still gorggy in his bed, the boat much like his head, rocking. 

"Good morning," a female voice had welcomed him. It wasn't unusual for him after a night on shore to come back with a catch. He had straightened up, rubbing his face, and got out of the hammock. "You need to leave now," he had said, without even looking at her and putting on his pants and shirt. "We're setting sail soon. It's best if you're not here by then."

There had been no sound, so he had turned to look at her. He would kick her by force if need be. She had been naked, sitting in his hammock under his dirty blanket. She couldn't have been older than 15. Her eyes had looked too big for her thin face. "You said you'd take me with you." She had looked at him as if he was the last shred of hope she had, her last lifeline. 

"Listen…" he had tried, "Last night was last night. I'm sorry, but you have to go."

"Please… please don't send me away. Please bring me home" She had been at his feet then, naked, shaking, begging him. 

They wouldn't let him keep her anyway. A woman on board would be bad luck. He had grabbed her by her hair and dragged her outside. "You best be gone before the others are back here, we are setting sail in a few hours. If they catch you here, they won't be as nice as me."

He had left her standing there, the blanket barely covering her naked body, big tears falling down her cheeks. 

"Don't look at me like that. Go on. Go back to your mom and dad."  
At that, she had burst out in tears and sunk to the floor. 

"You can't keep her." The cook had said to him on the second day out at sea. "If the cap'in finds her here he will have both your hides and mine for knowin' and not tellin'."

"He won't find her," Luke had given the gruff man a look he hoped was menacing enough to keep him quiet. "Will he?" 

The man had lowered his eyes. "Fine, but I'm not giving her the others' food. You want her, you feed her."

They had arrived at Cape Horn at noon of their fourth day at sea. 

It was only an hour ago that the sun was still high in the sky. Now, noon felt like midnight. Ahead, the wet beast raised its head from the fog, opening its mouth, exposing her giant teeth, and he felt powerless. He couldn’t see the men below on deck anymore, he couldn't see Lucia.

It happened fast, like the bite of a snake, and he was flying through the air into darkness.

 

******

Reese woke up gasping. Above him, Dex was trying to calm him down. "Breathe, breathe. You're okay." He got up to a sitting position, and a wet cloth rolled from his head to his lap. 

"God…" he groaned and buried the heels of his hands in his eyes. Dex's reassuring hand was on him, grounding him. They both set in silence for a moment. 

"So, I think I figured out what connects all these people," Dex said, once Reese started breathing normally again.

"You mean, aside from the fact that they're all dead?"

"Y… yes. Aside from that."

"Well, you've had a lot more time to think about it, what's your theory?"

"So, I've been trying to retrieve some of the information about the cloud that we collected before all the machines went haywire," Dex said and pulled out the device he had been tinkering with for the past few hours.

"How did you get this to work?"

"Unfortunately had to borrow one of the light batteries, I know, I know, but I think it might solve the case of my future murder."

"I'm starting to see how we got there," Reese said and smiled. "What did you find?"

"A connection." He smirked. "Between your dreams and the activity of the cloud." Dex handed him the device. "Look at these readings."

"So, the cloud is not a cloud." 

Dex was shaking his head in confirmation. "I think it's alive."

"And the people in my dreams?"

"That, I don't know. But give me some more time, I will figure it out". 

 

******

"Can ye hear that sound, Clayton Wilde?" Lady Bell looked at him from above, her handkerchief covering her nose, for the stench no doubt. Next to her, in a semi-protective stance, stood her husband, a chubby man, with a weak jawline and deep pockets. 

"What sound?" Wilde said grinning. He could see by her face she was still afraid of him, even though he was behind bars. The endless whine of the wood in the distance was like driving a screw through his skull. He almost wished they would just kill him already. It drove him insane to think that the last sound he was ever gonna hear was that annoying sound of the trap door opening. 

"I bet now ye wished ye chose the path of God instead of the Devil," she said and made a point to spit at his direction. "May God have mercy on your black soul."

"No comin' near the prisoner." The Lieutenant came in with his hand raised and ushered them out of the cells area. He could smell the money exchanging hands. He'd been having visitors all afternoon. 

"Well, at least somethin' good is coming out of ye," the lieutenant said and grinned as he let another couple in to see him. 

"Isn't death punishment enough?" he yelled after the lieutenant. But in all honesty, he was glad he didn't have to spend the last hours of his life alone, even if it was condemning him to an endless line of foul oaths and the occasional spit. The woman who entered the door was pregnant and flushed; her floral dress was doing an understandably poor job at hiding her belly that was so big she looked like she could no longer carry the weight by herself.

"Whoa, I think you've got the wrong cell here lady," he said as he neared the bars and leaned on them.

Right behind her, her husband, a slovenly-looking man was the absolute opposite. He was gaunt and angular, with a waxy complexion and wore a worn grey winter suit. He carried a stool and quickly placed it near the wall and helped her down. She let out a sigh of relief pulled open her fan and started waving it vigorously.

"Twins" she said to him with an apologetic sigh. 

"Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered you came ol' this way to get ma permission to name ye' children after me…" he said and gave her his most charming fake grin. The one he would give the ladies he had just robbed.

"You're in an awfully good mood for someone a spit away from the rope."

"Let's not talk of spitin', I've had enough of that for today," he said and looked her over. "So why ye here, then?" The others that came before her he recognized, but not her. "Came to see what thieving and murdering can do to a man's soul?"

"I came here to see where I went wrong."

"Where you went wrong?" he chuckled. "That's a new one. Most other folks came to see what I did wrong. And mostly the consequences, but for that your early, that’s tomorrow."

She tilted her head to the side. "I came to see where I went wrong with you." 

For a moment they both stared at each other. _Why was he even indulging those crazy folks? _"I mean no disrespect, I may not be sober all the time, or most of the time, but I don't think we've met."__

__"Oh, sorry! Where is my head? I'm Mrs. Henrietta Dagny, and this here is my husband, Jacob. And you're Mr. Wilde. We've met several times actually."_ _

__"I think I'd remember meeting someone… in your condition."_ _

__"I haven't always been pregnant, ye know."_ _

__He looked her over, the sweat above her lip and her labored breathing. Maybe the last thing he was gonna see in life was a birth. "You could have fooled me."_ _

__"We met when I was younger, and you were older. Or was it the other way around? I never can tell. You weren't as afraid of death as you are now."_ _

__"Lady, you ain't making a lick of sense."_ _

__"Yes, I guess I'm not. But I think I know now how to solve the problem."_ _

__"Whatever you say, lady."_ _

__"When are you due?" He nodded toward her belly._ _

__"Any day now. And the sooner, the better," she chuckled. He could see she was going to be a good mother._ _

__"Twins, you said?"_ _

__"Yes, it was a surprise. I was only ready for one. Didn't think I had room in there for more, but what do you know."_ _

__She got up slowly letting her husband support her. She came near him, her dark eyes resting on his. "I only came here to let you know that I know how to solve the problem now. So don't worry."_ _

__"No comin' near the prisoner," the lieutenant shouted from up the stairs._ _

__"Don't worry, when we meet again soon, I'll have this whole thing fixed."_ _

__"I don't know if you've noticed, but, there ain't gonna be any soon to speak of." He called after her. She smiled and went up the stairs, her pale husband, Jacob, at her heels, and was quickly replaced by Mrs. Morgan and her two brothers._ _

__The next morning, as he was standing waiting for the inevitable whine of the door, he looked for Mrs. Dagny in the crowd._ _

__Among the sea of faces, some familiar, some not, he saw only her husband watching him from the corner of the square. He was alone, and he wondered whether it was because she had given birth._ _

__******_ _

__The coping blade felt heavy in Reese's hand. He looked at the blackness that covered it all the way to the hilt. The mainframe lay gutted before him, black goo pouring from one of its crevices. He hadn't felt this good in a long time. He looked outside the cockpit at the thousands of stars._ _

__"USS Argo to Jumper." The comms rattled to life. "Come in Jumper."_ _

__He went over to the console "This is Commander Reese Dexter, over."_ _

__"Glad to hear from you, sir. You are just in time."_ _


End file.
